THE ART OF TRAWLING. 223 



and stated that 99 out of every 100 turbot and brills, nine-tenths 

 of all the haddocks, and a large proportion of all the skate, which 

 are daily sold in the wholesale fishmarkets of this country, are 

 caught by the system of trawling. Trawling is without doubt 

 the most efficient mode of getting the white fish at the bottom 

 of the ocean ; and were it made penal, London and the large 

 towns would at times be entirely without fish. As a matter of 

 course, trawling must exhaust the shoals at particular places. 

 A fleet of upwards of 100 smacks, each with a beam nearly 40 

 feet long, trawling night and day, disturbs, frightens, or captures 

 whatever fish are to be found in that locality, entrapping, besides, 

 shell-fish, anchors, stores that have been sunken with ships ages 

 ago ; even a wedge of gold has been brought up by this insatiable 

 instrument. The only remedy is to widen the field of action. 



It is best, however, in a case of dispute, as in this trawl 

 question, to allow those interested to speak for themselves. I 

 have gone over an immense mass of the evidence taken by a 

 recent commission appointed by Parliament to make inquiry on 

 the subject, and will set some parts of it before my readers, so 

 that, if a little trouble be taken in weighing the pros and cons of 

 the matter, they may be able to form their own judgment on 

 this vexed question. A CuUercoats fisherman is very strong 

 against the beam-trawl. . He is certain that thirty years ago we 

 could get double the quantity of fish, dmring the fishing season, 

 that we obtain now, and that the supply has fallen away little by 

 little ; and he says that even ten years ago it was almost as good 

 as it was thirty years ago. Some years hence England wUl cry 

 out for want of fish if trawling be allowed to go on. The price 

 of fish has doubled, he says, of late years. " When I was a 

 young man, there were nine in family of us, and my wife could 

 purchase haddock for twopence which would serve for our dinners. 

 Now she could not obtain the same quantity for less than nine- 

 pence or tenpence. Of recent years the number of fishermen and 

 , fishing-boats has greatly increased. I do not think the fisher- 

 men of the present day are better off than those when I was a 

 young man." The fishermen at CuUercoats, when they trawl, 

 use the small trawl, and fish in shallow water. Under these 

 circumstances they do no injury. The trawlers, with the large 

 trawl, says a Mr. Nicholson who was examined, not only sweep 

 away the lines of the fishermen, but also destroy the fish. At 

 CuUercoats a man engaged in the line-fishing gets all the fish on 

 his own lines, and his wife goes to town and disposes of them. 



